END OF YEAR REPORT

INSIDE THIS REPORT:

20 Annual survey results

28 2013: 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, small cells and NFV to the fore

31 March of the smartphone continues as do tech teething problems

32 2014: LTE-A, VoLTe and wearable devices begin to make their mark

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End of Year Report

Annual survey results

Which technology has had the most disruptive impact on mobile operators in 2013?

Every year, Mobile Europe’s survey uses its readers as a lightening rod for wireless technology’s big questions. Here are the results of our fourth annual report

20 | Mobile Europe | @mobileeurope | mobileeurope.co.uk

ustifiably, 2013 could be described as

the year that 4G LTE really took off in

Europe as a steady stream of launches

occurred throughout. Therefore, it is not surprising

that the fourth generation technology takes

top spot as the most disruptive this year. Both

operators and the wider industry agree with

4G LTE’s preeminent position and that of big

data as next on the technology to-do list. There

after, however, opinions diverge slightly with

operators suggesting m-payments have been

most disruptive but all respondents leaning more

towards cloud RAN. It is interesting to note the

comparatively few respondents who view Wi-Fi as

one of the most disruptive technologies – it was

chosen by just 10 percent of operators and seven

percent of all respondents.

J

MOST INNOVATIVE OPERATOR IN 2013?Vodafone gained the most votes for the operator that has implemented the best

technology innovation this year. The UK-based MNO gained 20 percent of the vote of

all respondents to our survey, who cited a range of innovations that they viewed worthy

of highlighting. These included Vodafone’s 4G LTE network and the use of carrier

aggregation as well as a secure SIM, cloud PBX and the recently launched mobile wallet.

4G LTE 63%

4G LTE 60%

Operator respondents

All respondents

Big data 19%

Cloud RAN 14%

Big data 15%

M-payments 15%

End of Year Report

Which technology will have the most disruptive impact on mobile operators in 2014?

Which of the following services are key for operators to offer to their customers in 2014?

Mobile Europe | @mobileeurope | mobileeurope.co.uk | 21

G LTE will continue to dominate the

mobile technology space in 2014,

respondents believe. Over half of

operators and 44 percent of all respondents

think it will have the most disruptive impact

next year. Equally, big data retains its role as the

second most disruptive technology amongst all

respondents, but operators see Wi-Fi making a

much bigger impact next year. All respondents

expect inaugural LTE-A deployments to disrupt

the market, but while operators surprisingly see

a role for 5G, all respondents expect small cells

to make an impact.

hen it comes to which services

operators should be offering to

their customers next year, there are

two clear winners – VoLTE and TV/video. VoLTE

came out on top amongst all respondents,

while TV/video was the number one choice of

operators. Both follow on naturally from the

launch of 4G LTE. M-payments were mentioned

again, but operators also highlighted two other

services – unifi ed communications-as-a-service

and apps – that they think they need to focus

on. OTT messaging and communications scored

just 18 percent of the overall operator vote,

suggesting operators are admitting defeat to a

large extent in their battle to win this space.

4

W

MOST INNOVATIVE VENDOR IN 2013?Ericsson and Samsung received the joint most votes for the vendor that introduced

the best technology products this year. Respondents who voted for Ericsson selected

its hetnet offering, VoLTE portfolio and Radio Dot solution that’s designed to solve

the challenges mobile operators face with in-building coverage. Those who selected

Samsung highlighted its wearable technologies, its LTE solution and the Galaxy camera.

VoLTE 50%

TV and Video 47%

M-payments 42%

TV and Video 59%

Unifi ed Communications as a Service 47%

VoLTE 47%

Consumer apps 41%

M-payments 41%

4G LTE 44%

Big data 19%

Wi-Fi 19%

LTE-A and Small cells 16%

4G LTE 55%

Wi-Fi 25%

Big data 15%

LTE-A 15%

5G 15%

Operators

Operators

All

All

End of Year Report

22 | Mobile Europe | @mobileeurope | mobileeurope.co.uk

What will be operators’ top network investment priority in 2014?

What will be mobile operators’ top priority to limit network costs in 2014?

ontinued deployment of 4G LTE

networks ensures the technology

will dominate operators’ network

investments next year. Over eight in 10 operator

respondents and seven in 10 total respondents

believe this will be the case. However, from

there opinions diverge. Operators expect Wi-Fi,

backhaul and network security investments to

be the next most important, but all respondents

chose traffic offload, network sharing and small

cells. Such a divergence poses some interesting

questions about the conflicting priorities and/

or expectations of the operator and vendor

community in particular.

lthough capex is on the rise thanks to

4G LTE deployments, with operator

business models continuing to

be constrained by a lack of revenue growth

CTOs are having to come up with ways to

reduce network costs. Both operators and all

respondents agree that traffic optimisation and

control will be their top priority in this regard,

followed by network planning and optimisation,

and network sharing.

C

A

Operators

Operators

All

All

LTE deployment 82%

LTE deployment 72%

Traffic offload 31%

Network sharing 28%

Small cells 28%

Wi-Fi 35%

Backhaul 29%

Network security 29%

Traffic optimisation and control

45%

Network planning and optimisation

40.5%

Network sharing

36%

Traffic optimisationand control

58%

Network planning and optimisation

42%

Network sharing 31.5%

End of Year Report

Mobile Europe | @mobileeurope | mobileeurope.co.uk | 23

VOX POPS 2013As part of the annual survey, which featured

the responses of 75 people from across the

mobile ecosystem, Mobile Europe made a list

of statements and asked respondents to rate

how strongly or otherwise they agreed with

them. Here are the results:

of all respondents agree that

network performance is the most important

customer experience metric

of operators believe that it is

becoming harder to train and recruit the

necessary staff in the mobile tech field.

This number falls to 56 percent when all

respondents are factored in.

of all respondents and 71 percent

of operators think small cells have been over-

hyped by vendors.

of operators and 66 percent of

all respondents think serving the enterprise

market will increasingly become more

important than serving the retail market.

of operators and 74 percent of

all respondents agree that location-based

services will be a key revenue driver in the

next few years.

of operators think there will

be increased industry consolidation in the

operator community in 2014, while 89.5

percent think the vendor community will also

experience increased M&A activity.

What will be operators top IT investment priority in 2014?

ust as with the network, there are

some interesting divergences of

opinion between operators and the

wider telecoms community when it comes to

IT investment priorities. While a majority of

operators view IT security as the number one

priority, a majority of all respondents think big

data and analytics should be front of mind.

Operators put a smaller emphasis on cloud and

IPv6, while data centre investment features in

the top three priorities across the board.

J

86%

73%

74%

69%

81%

Wi-Fi 35%

Backhaul 29%

All

Big data & analytics 53%

Cloud 44%

Data centre 28%

IPv6 28%

IT security 28%

Operators

IT security 41%

Data centre 35%

Big data & analytics

29.5%

Cloud 29.5%

100%

End of Year Report

24 | Mobile Europe | @mobileeurope | mobileeurope.co.uk

Annual survey extra

Do you agree with the following statement? “VoLTE (Voice over LTE) is a viable alternative to keeping 2G /3G for voice.”

Alcatel-Lucent asked Mobile Europe to devise an in-depth survey on 4G LTE. Here is a preliminary review of the results

espite many LTE launches this year, a

majority of the operator respondents

(65 percent) said they had not yet

deployed a network, perhaps confirming Europe’s

laggard status versus the rest of the world.

Regardless of whether they had or not,

when asked to rank the business benefits of

deploying an LTE network, the majority said

“Improving customer experience” was the

top benefit. “Increasing network capacity and

coverage” were viewed as the least beneficial

outcomes from the list provided.

As for their concerns over migrating to LTE,

capex costs and device availability ranked

highest amongst operators. However, when

answers from the wider telecoms community

were factored in, “revenue generation” was the

biggest concern.

A majority (48 percent) of operators do not

agree that they should charge a premium for

LTE, although a third think operators should

charge a €1-5 premium. Sixteen percent said

they should charge more than €5.

Operators were equally split when it came

to the merits of VoLTE. Although over half (54

percent) said it is a viable alternative to keeping

2G /3G for voice, 31 percent were unsure. Fifteen

percent said it categorically wasn’t an alternative.

For those operators who think it is an

alternative, a majority (42 percent) said it

did not matter when VoLTE is implemented.

Just over a third (35 percent) said within 12

months of launching LTE was the ideal time,

with just eight percent believing it should be

implemented the day LTE is launched. Seventy

three percent of operators said no premium

should be charged for VoLTE. Meanwhile, over

38 percent of operators said they were looking

at deploying VoWiFi and over 15 percent said

they were looking at VoHSPA.

When it came to implementation, 78 percent

of operators (and 75 percent of all respondents)

Dwere in agreement that overlay is the best

method to deploy LTE. Of those, the majority of

operators (37 percent) said lower risk was the

principal reason for choosing overlay, followed

by speed to market, which was chosen by 32

percent of operator respondents.

For those who said overlay was not the

best method, the main reasons were equally

split (29 percent) between speed to market,

lower cost and lower risk amongst operators.

However, all respondents cited better

interoperability between 2G/3G/4G as the

main reason.

When selecting a vendor for 4G LTE, 77

percent of operators said it was either “critical”

or “important” that the vendor had previous

experience of LTE roll outs.

Over 39 percent of operators said it was “very

important” to improve LTE indoor coverage and

capacity, with just four percent saying it is “not

important for now”. Thirteen percent said they

preferred to rely on Wi-Fi offload.

Further, a majority of operators (43.5 percent)

selected indoor coverage as the primary value

proposition of LTE small cells ahead of “the

ability to offer innovative new services based on

location” and indoor capacity.

The main reason for not adopting LTE small

cells is “the need to deploy LTE at the macro

level first”, which was chosen by 43.5 percent

of operators. “The ability of the small cell to

interface with the surrounding macro” was the

next most popular reason amongst operators,

but all respondents chose “deployment

logistics – power, location, backhaul, local

authority planning regulations”.

Around 75 people took the Mobile Europe

Alcatel-Lucent LTE survey. Over 42 percent

were operators and 79.5 percent of all

respondents came from Europe.

The full results will be discussed in a webinar

in February.

Yes but only when decommissioning 3G

17%

Yes but only when decommissioning 2G

11%

Yes but only when decommissioning

2G and 3G26%

No21.5%

Maybe24.5%